The one-for-all channel

Doordarshan Chennai turned 40 recently, which is as good an excuse as any to talk about what Doordarshan meant and what it means today.

This Independence Day, I was thinking about Doordarshan. In the late 1970s and early 80s – that’s when many of us got a television set, something that resembled a crate with closing doors; some of these doors even had a locking mechanism, as if to prevent a cat burglar from making away with the cathode ray tube – August 15 meant that we’d see Manoj Kumar walking around a field with a plough slung on his shoulder, the way an action hero would carry a rifle. The song he sang – Mere desh ki dharti – was, to my generation, the musical equivalent of the twelve-times table, a droning chorus that went on and on, but today, I look back at it with some amount of wistfulness. It’s not the song itself. It’s what it represented, the fact that you had to listen to it because it was August 15.

A few hours of programming every night was all one had, and whoever was doing the programming made sure that we were being shown what was “good for us” – it was the spinach model of television programming. So on Independence Day, we got to watch a special edition of songs – along with Mere desh ki dharti, we’d get Chhodo kal ki baaten, with its refrain of “hum Hindustani” and Jahan daal daal par, with its segue into Gurur Brahma Gurur Vishnu… A few years later, we got Mile sur mera tumhara, that ode to national integration with a blockbuster cast. On Eid, DD-Chennai, which recently completed 40 years, would show us Ellorum kondaaduvom, the song from Paava Mannippu which depicts a Muslim celebration, and Nalla manadhil kudiyirukkum Nagoor aandavaa. Christmas would bring Christmas songs, the end of December would be marked by New Year songs.

This may make it appear that I’m talking about tokenism, but it’s actually a kind of egalitarianism – a pre-TRP-era television-programming model that ensured a bit of everything for everyone, putting the “broad” in “broadcasting.” Of course, the majority interests were catered to the most, which meant the programmes were mostly in Tamil and English and Hindi, the languages you still find on the yellow signs in the local train stations. But Sunday afternoons would be reserved for regional-language films, and the language would change every week. Sitting in Madras – not Chennai – we were being exposed to Malayalam and Assamese and Punjabi films. And along with Chitrahaar, which only screened Hindi songs, and Oliyum Oliyum, which only screened Tamil songs, there was Chitramala, which featured six or seven songs in different languages from across the country.

There were programmes for women (Manaimaatchi), for children (Wonder Balloon), for men (the very pointedly titled Men and Matters, as if women did not matter; but then, that wasn’t a very enlightened era in these matters), for farmers (Vayalum Vaazhvum) – there was even a programme for viewers, called Edhiroli, TV’s answer to the newspaper’s letters-to-the-editor column. You’d be right in pointing out that this model of programming existed only because there were no other channels – once those other channels arrived, nobody went back to Doordarshan. When Star Plus was beaming up slick and racy episodes of Baywatch and Moonlighting and The Wonder Years, who’d switch to DD programmes, whose production values were like Nirupa Roy’s wardrobe? The DD model worked only because of its captive audience. Once those viewers were set free, once they were given a choice, they shifted loyalties to channels that showed programmes that they wanted to see, not the ones they had to see.

That doesn’t sound like a bad thing, at all – except when you consider that when we are given a choice, we usually choose pizza over spinach. When I had only Doordarshan, I watched whatever was shown – including programmes like Expedition to the Animal Kingdom and Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. Despite my primary interest in all things cinema, I was watching science shows too. Today, these programmes would air on separate science channels (Discovery, National Geographic), which means (if I were a kid) I’d be faced with the choice between watching something heavy and interesting, or a favourite film for the 28th time, and I’d probably end up choosing the latter. Of course, there’s more than just TV today for “entertainment” – games, phones, games on phones – which makes me feel sadder for good, old DD.

I know there are those who say DD should be given a makeover, hepped up to attract urban audiences, but I think it’s too late. To most of us, DD is just a name from the past, a cobwebby repository of Lalitaji ads and Nukkad episodes, an excuse for nostalgia pieces like this one, a channel whose remote-control number-sequence no one remembers – it’s not so much Doordarshan as something-that’s-been-shown-the-door-darshan. I don’t watch much TV anymore, but sometimes, while flipping channels, I’ll land on DD and see a documentary about chikankari embroidery or the poetry of Sahir Ludhianvi and end up with a mix of feelings – sad that no one will be watching these shows, and yet immensely touched that the channel continues to be the brave little soldier fighting a lost war.

What a timely piece, Rangan. Yesterday night, I was trawling the web for the old serial and I managed to find Idhar Udhar on YouTube. I had earlier bought the entire DVD set of Nukkad and some of the Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi episodes.

I too remember watching everything that was there to be seen – from Krishi Samachar onwards. Surabhi was another ‘serial’ that I really liked – it uncovered such interesting facets of our country. I remember Tamas, Ados Pados, Hum Hindustani, Mr and Mrs, Katha Sagar, Mungerilal ke Haseen Sapne, Wagle ki Duniya, Kakaji Kahin, Campus, Isi Bahane… so many wonderful serials, and not one saas-bahu one amongst them.

I also remember waiting for Phool Khile Hain Gulshan Gushan, Chitrahaar, Chitramala, Oliyum Oliyum – the only time I had a complaint was when I was in Madras, and they decided to telecast Oliyum Oliyum at the same time as one of the Chitrahaars.

During the late 80s, DD also showed late night retrospectives of Hitchcock, Raj Kapoor, Bimal Roy, and a whole slew of old classic Hollywood and Hindi films. Plus, the afternoon slot gave us award winning films in regional languages, films we would never have even known of otherwise.

Today, with hundreds of channels on television, I find there is nothing much to watch.

who’d switch to DD programmes, whose production values were like Nirupa Roy’s wardrobe?

Ha ha, that was LOL

This piece really makes one nostalgic. For me the earliest memories of DD where chitrahaar, krishi darshan and Mahabharata. The Sunday morning where all the neighbors used to get together at our house to watch it. The opening music and visuals of the DD trademark at the beginning of the transmission. Hmmm, you are right about DD today. Its been a long while since I watched it.

What a wonderful piece. Yes, good old DD. Thirty years ago, in DD, the soaps were so much better than the nonsense telecast nowadays in the various channels. Acting, plot was more realistic, no loud music, reaction shots etc. Those serials were so much better and watchable even now.

Was wondering when will you write up something about this. Captive audience or not, I remember thoroughly enjoying everything you listed. And remember that Oliyum Oliyum with specific themed songs, those foreign language films, all those award winning movies in different languages, the news for the deaf and dumb, Cutting classes to watch women’s cricket test matches, the ‘thadangalukku varundugirom’ at many crucial moments, etc., etc.

Nostalgia galore! Keep thinking that where will we get to watch concerts of Nadiya Hussain, Runa Laila, Naushad, Begum Akhtar, Different Strokes, Nonstop Nonsense, Mind your Language, Bodyline…the list goes on and on. Though many are now available on youtube or other online video platform, it is not the same – if you get my drift.

And yes, numerous channels now, but no anticipation, that wanting to watch. Like that B B King’s song – The thrill is gone. sigh.

Just sticking with Independence Day for a moment, both my parents are diplomats and at present work for the Indian Embassy in Tel-Aviv. I was both amused and astounded to find out that at this year’s Independence Day function in Tel-Aviv, in addition to the National Anthem, all the staff were required to memorize and sing the entirety of ‘Aye Watan Tere Liye’, from the movie Karma…!! LOL…!! The orders apparently came from the Ambassador himself…!! Seriously, what was he thinking…?!?! This was really a first and hence felt like sharing it with you guys… 🙂

The birth of Doordarshan Madras in 1975, is all mixed up with major changes to my life. At that time, my father was an engineer in AIR, Calcutta and he was one of the many who were transferred to Doordarshan Madras to meet their huge demand for engineers. So we located to Madras in 1976. So he was one of the pioneers involved in the setting up Doordarshan, Madras. After 6-7 years, when the 1982 Asiad required engineers in N Delhi, he got transferred again and we shifted to N Delhi.

During the time we lived in Madras, we’d often accompany my father to his DD station near Santhome beach and gaze wide eyed at the many studios there. In those days, most events were recorded in the studio, including the plays and so there was a lot to see.

As soon as we moved to Madras, our family got a television set, courtesy of the government and so ours was quite the first (and for sometime the only) family in the neighborhood to own a set. My parents being very social and generous, events like the Sunday Tamil movie, Oliyum Oliyum and sports matches, would see our living room filled to overflowing capacity and the ambience was quite like being in a theatre or stadium respectively. Our maid servant was a huge MGR fan and when he appeared on the screen, she would rush to the set and kiss her hand and touch his face with her kissed hand. Since Kerala did not have TV for a long time afterwards, our relatives would descend by the truckload for weeks together for the amazing experience of seeing cricket matches on Television.

Perhaps it was the novelty and the lack of other avenues of entertainment but Television seems to have been most popular during that period.

Apart from all the wonderful programs and quality cinema listed here, one other thing bears mention. While teens, most of our knowledge of the western music world would come from the radio and a magazine called Sun. In the early eighties, we would get studio performances of artists like Abba on Doordarshan. The eighties also saw the advent of the music video in western pop music, and Doordarshan started transmitting the Grammy awards. The year that is etched in my memory is 1984 when during the Grammy awards, I saw an androgynous voiced, effeminate looking Michael Jackson with a superlative voice range walk away with eight awards. The intensity and power of the Beat it music video performance (which was probably my first ever exposure to the music video) is probably unparalleled. A little later there was this wonderful program called “Hot tracks” sponsored by Vimal where we got to see a huge number of music videos. It was a very well anchored and well presented program. I’d stay awake till more than 11 pm on Fridays to see performances from Culture Club (Do you really want to hurt me), Sting (the intense ‘Every breath you take’ with its stalker lyrics), Madonna’s ‘Material girl’ and ‘Like a virgin’, Wham (wake me up) and The Thomson twins’ Hold me now.

Later, in the nineties, on cable TV when we had 24*7 music videos, I was still in college but somehow the charm of the videos had faded a little. Perhaps it was my growing a little older and getting used to them, or perhaps the quality of those music videos were best in the eighties (where many of these videos would act out stories). I do not know. But it seemed to me that it was like the lyrics of that Bruce Springsteen song :

“Man came by to hook up my cable TV
We settled in for the night, my baby and me
We switched ‘round and ‘round ‘til half past dawn
There was fifty seven channels and nothin’ on”

It’s funny looking back what kind of variety we had between DD National and DD Metro. The tacky detective shows like Tehkikaat (which, when all is said and done, wasn’t that much worse than CID) and the family soaps but also wonderful dark comedies like Flop Show satirizing the state of the nation. Plus, T&J in the morning, HeMan in the evening. Even Star TV was classy at the time. Now, of course, variety has ensured that the audience that liked the English serials of Star simply choose from a wide array of English GEC and movie channels with a quality of programming that was probably elusive then. Also, I think what killed the Nat Geo/Discovery niche is really internet and youtube rather than the liberalisation of the television industry. Nowadays, you can watch a documentary on the topic YOU want on youtube at a time of your choice. In spite of having the technology, TV missed the bus by being pricey; they have been fortunate not to pay a heavy price the way the music industry has had to. But the problem is in India nobody else other than DD would be interested in making a documentary on chikankari and that’s a shame. The independence day speech has become a dreary affair and essentially a good day to conduct society AGMs more than anything. The nation is now cynical beyond redemption and the thought of listening to Manoj Kumar on radio (this happened by the by, they had him over on 92.7 in Mumbai) only provokes irritation. Briefly last year, the still-pretending-to-be-outsider prime minister brought back the relevance of I-day with an American style state of the union address, articulating a vision rather than mouthing stats and numbing platitudes. This year, Mr.Modi conspicuously referred to notes as he reeled off stats and names of schemes and the public basically got the message and got on with their day. There wasn’t even any liberal ranting against his choice of Vande Mataram before Jai Hind at the end of the speech because nobody gave a shit. Back to business-as-usual. Modi could have been the vehicle for DD to recapture the interest of viewers but if this year’s I Day event is any indication, that is not likely to happen.

Very nice one. My mom laughed her lungs out on reading that “men and matters” piece.

Well, DD might have been shown the door by the masses, but still there is a channel out there if you want to catch up with “chikankari embroidery” or “the poetry of Sahir Ludhianvi”, which are definitely not for the masses.

One of my favorite programs in DD was “Sunil Gavaskar Presents” which was telecast circa ’88. He was absolutely terrific as a host as he interviewed players like Srikkanth, et al. Talking of Srikkanth, I don’t remember watching this but Srikkanth’s youtube channel has videos of him (again from the late 80s) talking to a variety of commoners which I found in equal parts amusing and entertaining. The one with the maamis was the funniest!
I don’t know for sure but I can’t think of anything other than DD that this was telecast on:

DD is definitely all about nostalgia! Besides all the popular series such as Khandaan, Buniyaad, Mr ya Mrs, Wah Janab (with one of the earliest Shekar Suman roles), Trishna and the others already mentioned here… I liked Subah. The intensity of Salim Ghouse’s performance was pretty cool back then.

Also, couple of series that I’ve always remembered are David Attenborough’s Living Planet and the cricket series Bodyline. Hugo Weaving as Douglas Jardine has always stayed on my mind before he became all famous with the Matrix film series.

Baddy, also on Aug 15th, we’d always get a dose of Bharathavilas (at least the song)! 🙂

@Ram Murali, I’ve seen most of the videos on Srikkanth’s channel. These used to be on his website prior to YouTube. In the clip you posted above, there is my college junior among the children… I’ve always ragged her about it! 🙂

Over and above what other’s have mentioned is the Serials is one thing I miss. Just to quote a few. Bharat Ek Khoj was an outstanding adaptation of “Discovery of India” into serial by Shyam Benegal which starred all top actors. Not sure we can anything like that now.

Not sure if we can get a seial a Byomkesh Bakshi on TV Screen in our time now. When that STAR PLUS serials started the whole focus to “Melodrama ” with “Kyon khi Saas bhi…” and other tamil serials like “Metti oli.etc”.. AM amazed at Hollywood still. The kind of standards they set in TV Shows also. “Breaking Bad”: and “Sherlock” are classic examples on the bench mark they set.

The comments made me wake up and order the entire set of Bharat ek Khoj.

It could be that we are spoilt for choice having so many channels and variety. There is quantity but seldom quality.

Watching DD during my growing up years was wondrous. Whether it was the only one available, or zero exposure to the thought that other choice may exist, or other good quality and variety or programmes may be available. Who cared about the garish amateurish sets when DD had Villupattu, Karagattam, Mayil Attam, Koothu, Gramea Padalgal, Dance Programmes of Padma Subramanian, Alarmel Valli, Yamini Krishnamurthy, Malika Sarabhai, Shovana Narayan, even the staged plays were actual comedies of Cho., Mouli, Crazy Mohan, Singers like Balamurali Krishna, M L Vasanthakumari, M S Subbulakshmi, Semmangudi, Maharajapuram Santhanam, Bengalur Ramani Amma, Pandit Jasraj, Kishori Amonkar, and musicians like Bismillah Khan, Hariprasad Chaurasiya, Veenai Balachander, Gayatri, Sheikh Chinna Moulana, etc., etc., etc. Some we made fun of, but still watched in its entirety.

One cannot even think of getting such class and quality without the in your face trumpeting that channels do of late and that too for a mediocre mediocrity.

As many said, the crowds in the house during the films, or Oliyum Oliyum and especially Indira Gandhi’s funeral!). 

As Brangan said, it had a little for everyone from kids to (I remember watching Tom and Jerry too) the elderly. It still soldiers on and I find myself thinking that it should.

It is a shame that it couldn’t reinvent to keep up with the rest of the multitude of channels, but if it did, would it have been worth the mediocrity? I do not watch TV at all, but if I did, I would watch DD any day than the rest of them because I do not want gimmicks and mediocrity in content..

Once again, what a timely piece Brangan! Frankly the reason why I keep coming back to your page even if i do not watch any movies.

Prasad, yes Bharat ek khoj was fantastic. I first saw it during its re run on DD. It wasn’t just the cast but also top notch crew and technical brilliance of the series. It was shot on film with film cameras as opposed to video cameras that is used to shoot serials. Such greats like Govind nihalani, V.K. Murthy behind the camera.the superb music composed by Vanraj bhatia. The different art forms like kathakali and others that were integrated to tell the stories. there will never be anything like it. that was why Benegal’s biopic of Bose was shocking to me. It was so ordinary and generic. Not worthy of a man who made BEK

Similar to this is the sterling service being done by AIR FM Gold channel which transmits lovely old songs with minimum ads especially in mornings and evenings when we can hear when travelling. Much in contarst to the banal ads /chatter and new songs of other private channels. Just love it. 🙂

Agreed with your comments. I think many episodes of BEK are available even in You tube

@ MANK:

Can’t agree more with your comments. Just hear the title song of the BEK. It just transports you to a different era. And it is such a difficult Project considering the timelines spanning across centuries. Just to conceptualize that in 80’s with the available budget at that time itself is worth commending. I didn’t see biopic of Bose though.

“Jeevan Rekha” is another serial which was pretty good featuring KK raina and Reema I think. Whole serial was based out of a Hospital.

Nowadays , you see very flashy sets and higher production values in all the serials but what you see is just emptiness in terms of content. Again even though, it is a generic comment but it is valid for most of the serials. That’s why I pointed out some Holllywood serials. I was spellbound with “Breaking bad”. Just amazing. Plot, direction, performances and maintaining the tempo for 62 episodes . Sherlock, The Sporanos… all are setting new benchmarks.

“Chidambara Rahasiyam ” and Vidathy Karuppu” some Serials (way back in 2002/3) of Naga was something in last I saw some amount of intellect and Plot there was some curiosity on what will happen next.

Again not a regular follower of TV Shows off late so my comments are purely based on what I’ve watched only.

Also a couple of TV movies that I loved on DD – Mahesh Bhatt’s “Janam” featuring Kumar Gaurav and Shernaz Patel, and Pankaj Kapoor’s “Ek Ruka Hua Faisla” (Remake of 12 angry men). That was the first time I noticed Pankaj Kapoor before he appeared in the detective series “Karamchand”. Of course until then, he had played significant roles in artsy films, but I really noticed him in that film. Similarly, I was hopeful that KG was poised for a comeback with “Janam” and “Naam” but only Sanjay Dutt benefited from “Naam” despite another good performance by KG.

Rasna Ad, Amazing Spider-man, The movie to be telecast next week in Ethiroli, Election coverage with all night movies while they count the votes (none of the movies should feature people associated to political parties), Bikram aur Vedhal,

How can anyone forget the state/national ‘days of mourning’ and the slow return to regular programmes? Only news-based programmes on the first day, documentaries on the next followed by commercials and tv serials and finally films. 🙂

We were one of the families that shifted to the cable tv network way later than the rest. So, almost till 2000, we used to just watch Doordarshan. Couple of more shows that I can think of which were essentially a part of my growing up years in Madurai Tamil Nadu. Alif Laila, Surabhi, the Tuesday evening stage drama, The Friday night Tamil movies (I think they started this sometime in the 90s only), Isai Arangam, Inbamana Neram (12 noon show), Kanmani poonga, wonder balloon, mayaavi mareechan, super hit muqabla, ek se badkar ek, vizhudugal (the first mega-serial in Tamil), Tehkikaat (I absolutely adore this show to date – Sam de Silva & Gopi as the detectives), Shanti, Swabhimaan (dubbed in tamil as suyamariyadhai) & on & on & on. Being in Madurai, we had little exposure to Hindi & we did not get to watch DD Metro as well. So, the Hindi shows on National television & the Saturday evening Hindi movies were my first exposure to the language. Nostalgic big time.

Off note, I used to somehow detest the Regional movies on Sunday afternoons – coz I would always wait for the Tamil movie. It was played in alphabetical order each week. Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Konkani, Marati….. & so on – & there were no sub-titles, Super boring – it would make our Sundays!. However, we had nothing else to do – so the TV would be running anyway. I remember the sound of the grinder in the background on hot Sunday afternoons with TV playing an un-understandable movie… – that is one experience that was not too pleasant.

Tangential question, BR and others – you a fan of Sekar/Mohan dramas of the 80s? My favorites will have to be (in no particular order) – Kaadhula Poo, Mahabarathathil Mangaatha, Return of Crazy Thieves and Alavudheen and 100 Watts Bulb!

Ram Murali: I was about to talk about the Diwali special dramas by Crazy/SVS too. I remember a particular drama which was recorded by my dad on VHS when I was attending Independence day Celebs in school that day.

It was about Crazy Mohan being obssesed with Ayurvedic remedies and Madhu Balaji overloading his wife with too much work and not sharing the chores with her. I used to watch that in VHS almost every week. After the VCR was replaced with CD player, I could not but lose that drama forever.

I remember editted versions of Madhu +2 being telecast on Pongal and SVS dishing out his stuff too but I felt he didnot recycle as much as Crazy did. But vanna kolangal and stuff do not seem hot stuff anymore. Some serials have aged a lot. Others not at all.

I was obsessed with recording stuff in VHS and was at it all the time. My collection may include comedy dramas, scenes from comedy movies, songs, cartoons etc in a single VHS and I would know the order by heart. I never bothered to label them. My Chitappa had labeled ones like (B&W songs #1, B&W songs #2, Cricket Highlights #1)etc

I loved Kaatla Mazhai, Marriage made in saloon etc too.

When Hawkeyeview was active in blogging, he used to quote plenty of SVS/Crazy quotes too. I guess we should be a certain age to be able to quote from SVS. I used to do that a lot. (Like “antha konar andrea ponar, intha konar MLA aanar”, etc) But kids these days do not know where this is all from, so I slowly stopped. Gounder’s quotes seem to have stood the test of time.

Ganesh: Same with my folks. We reluctantly switched to cable in the fag end of the 90s. It used to be a surprise to me to hear from other about the fierce competition between channels on who would first telecast the movie announced beforehand by other channels. While others were raving about the KB serials on Raj TV, my aunts were quite content with DD’s late afternoon offerings like “Oru Pennin Kadhai,” “Ethanai Manidhargal,” and “Vizhudhugal.” And melo, though they were, they seem vastly superior to the serials now, with all their blaringly loud background score, bad acting, garish clothes, pancake makeup and quite disgusting dialogues.

As a school kid myself, I still remember enjoying immensely those good old-fashioned Mickey and Minnie mouse cartoons, with Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge, Chip ‘n’ Dale, Tailspin, Jungle book (though I disliked it’s getting in Hindi), the Three Little Pigs, in the evenings. They were so perfectly timed to play right after school hours but before parents would get back from the office. After switching to cable TV, I found much of Cartoon Network stuff totally disappointing in comparison. There were these strange shows for children like Gadget boy (for whom Dexter is no match), Superhuman Samurai (with which Power Rangers compares so badly), Sonic the superfast hedgehog, all in the 4-5 p.m. slot on different weekdays and He-Man on Friday evenings. Shakthiman on Sundays proved real fun when we were younger and camp-fun during its re-run when we were a little more grown up.

As for sci-fi/fantasy/superhero/epic stuff, there was always plenty of material, one of my all-time favourites being “Chandrakantha.” I was this big fan of Pankaj Dheer for no particular reason except that he used to play some sort of evil king there with his cat’s-eye contact lenses! He was also a big reason for watching the courtroom drama “Kanoon” every week and the patriotic saga “Yug” in the afternoons, where Tom Alter (if I remember right) played the evil British officer. Just after we had grown out of Bethal Pachisi and the likes, they started Captain Vyom with its troubled otherworldly hero played by the handsome hunk that Milind Soman was in those days. That, and Sea Hawks with a young Maddy have us mid-teens a fair drool quotient too! 😉

BR is so right about the all-family thing: Remember us kids sitting huddled up with our grandpa who stretched it beyond his bedtime to watch Raja Aur Rancho at 9 p.m. or C.I.D. Shri Krishna and Mahabharatha, of course, were certified family fests.

All: ‘Thadangalukku Varundhugirom’ was of course the standing joke of the times. But does anyone else remember the occasional annoyance when the Hindi version of the dubbed series would be played straight on DD instead of the Tamil one? I had my favourites among those “vilambaradhaarar nigazhchigal” (what a curious name!) that were dubbed in Tamil: Neeya naanaa (Tu Tu Main Main), Thiruvaalar Thirumathi (Shriman Shrimati), All the best (Guddi was such a darling and the amiable Dr. Raj so likeable) etc. And on those un-dubbed occasions, even Superhit Muqabla used to become so hard to watch!

Wonder what happened to the boy model Tejan who appeared in the Action ‘School Time’ shoe ads! He was rumoured to be the highest-paid boy model then. And where is the curly-haired Vishal, the host of Disney Time on Sunday mornings?

Nostalgia overload 🙂 The spinach model of DD worked very well for me. Forget movies in other languages, some of the acclaimed movies in tamil like Veedu, Mogamul etc. would have been unknown to me but for DD. Also “Turning Point” was a program that made science interesting for me. There was a cricket program, forgot it’s name, they used to do a sort of coaching – how to bowl leg spin, how to play the hook shot etc, with views from star players. That’s what got my dad interested in cricket. He had no interest in any sport till then, but after watching this program he bought an actual leather cricket ball and used to discuss hours on end about spin bowling. Good times 🙂

Rahini David – I really enjoyed your comment. In fact, I was listening to Kaadhula Poo on my way to work! Still laugh at how the Sastrigal says, “Cricket commentary kaekkanum…namma aathu paiyyan velaiyaadraan…Ravi Sastri!”

In fact it’s not uncommon for my friends and I to just start quoting lines and have it go on and on until we get tired…In fact, it’s not even the obviously hilarious ones…sometimes it’s even the smaller moments like Maadhu saying, “Father Sirichuttar, Ena Manichuttaar” in “Return…” or Venky saying, “Kushma is good ma…nee vaa vaadhyaar!” in “Meesai Aanaalum…”

I think the two jokes from that period that never fail to crack me up are Sundha explaining what 70 mm is in “Crazy Thieves in Paalavakkam” (I don’t think I want to print that here!) and Madhu’s explanation for “200 Feared Dead at Mumbai Airport” (“Mumbai Vimaana Nilayathil 200 paer bayathuliye seththaargaL!”

@cl – News in English. Who can forget Komal GB Singh who later became the voice of most IVR’s and commentator for ID and Republic day telecasts? I think Citibank still has her voice. And Salma Sultan, Tejeshwar Singh, Rini Simon, Neeti Ravindran, Minu Talwar, Sunit Tandon, Narottam Puri, Vnod Dua, etc. Prannoy Roy was mentioned by someone earlier. And the goof-ups many made while reading from the prompter 🙂

And the National Mourning days and the limping return to programmes :):) The Shehnai used to be the bane for everyone! It was like mourning for different reasons for kids.

@KP – True

@Priyangu – Mrignayani. Ah, yes.

@Ganesh – Wonderbaloon et.al. Agree about the Grinder sound in the background  On regional movies, I cannot forget Elipattayam. Screaming “Raajamme, Pasu!” was our idea of fun for a long, long time. I also remember seeing many with subtitles.

@Ram Murali & Ishwarya – Those comedies    Remember getting cassettes too and listening them as family so many times. Sigh, comedy means berating everyone and even the slapstick makes you want to give more than ‘One Tight Slap’ to those involved.

@BR – Innocent times it was and guess the generation before said the same about their then and now. The jokes were actually funny then; they still are. For many years now that thrill in waiting, wanting to know, the anticipation, the enjoyment is gone and got replaced by constant biting of teeth that multiple dentist visits become imminent. I guess that is the price we pay for moving on with times, not ahead.

I seem to remember, very vaguely, a practice on certain Saturdays or Sundays, where instead of one Hindi movie, they’d show two smaller ones. They were more short-length feature films than short films. Either that or it was just one movie with a schizophrenic script. I am pretty sure I was told by elders that it was common in earlier days of DD. Does anyone else recall this?

“Bidhan Chandra Roy, the then Chief Minister of West Bengal, was requested by an Ray’s mother’s friend to help the production. The CM agreed but interestingly, many in the West Bengal misunderstood the nature of the film, believing it to be a documentary for rural uplift. The government records the loan given for the film as “roads improvement”, a reference to the film’s title”

A few of the things I often think about when it comes to DD (apart from the stuff already mentioned) are those awarness videos about Polio, Leprosy etc. I still remember Rajinikanth in that Polio awareness Ad, “Ithu poorva jenma paavamo mudivilatha saabamo illa, pethavangalaloda ajaakratha”. I believe Manorama had such a video too and Srividya had a song about male child preference that went “Aana ponna poranthathunu athu thaan inga mudhal kelvi”. I am sure illiterate people did learn a certain somthing about such things and also some first aid awareness because of this. Now nobody would view such a preachy song in its entirety.

The next thing I remember is a Tamil Vaathiyaar who made literacy easy. He started with படம், and move on to பட்டம் and பாட்டி and then குடம் and then குட்டை and then குடை. I just loved that approach. Nobody would watch it now in its entirety either.

But in general, I feel that the reason we like this topic is not because 80s rocked but because we were children then. They trigger happy memories because we went out to play after we read the “Thadangalukku Varunthugirom”, or went to our TINKLE, or Target. Is anybody else a fan of the Children’s magazine “Target”?

Rahini David – yes, I remember the Manorama video very well. The girl (who was unfortunately affected by polio) would actually do a Manorama impression and say, “Gammunu Kada” (from “Samsaram adhu Minsaaram”)

Also remember from DD-Metro, the program that Priya hosted, circa ’92-93. She was hugely popular for a short while and quickly faded out when Sun TV, with the likes of Pepsi Uma, largely crushed “DD Metro.” It was around that time that Radha Ravi did a program called, “NizhalgaLin Nijanthan” where he interviewed variety of people starting from character artistes like Kanthimathi to people that catered food to film units. This was an entirely different Radha Ravi, one that was kind and courteous, not the uncouth fellow that we see on youtube videos now. TV, in general, was a lot “cleaner” then, I feel. One of my amusing memories of my childhood days was my Dad switching off the TV when a jewelry ad came on TV – the women were apparently glamorous for DD standards!

Rahini, you brought back such lovely memories – of course I remember Target! One of my first stories was published in that magazine! 🙂 I also remember Chandamama – they ranked with Amar Chitra Katha for me, and both Champak and Tinkle were regularly bought for me by my father.

@Rangan – I remember watching all of those – Fraggle Rock, Spiderman, Jamie and the Magic Torch… I can still sing the Spiderman theme song!

There were plenty of tamil serials that were good as well AVM’s Oru manithan kathai, rayil Snegam, Penn some excellent interviews of actors/actress that were specials some I remember are one with Sivaji and Visu.

@Anu Warrier…and with children’s magazines, there were a whole lot of them that I used to regularly buy…Amar Chitra Katha, Chandamama, the super hero ones such as Flash Gordon, Mandrake, and The Phantom (The ghost who walks! :-))

Being in the land of “Hindi Hatao” and that too in a remote village in Kovai… I learnt all my Hindi thanks to DD (Nukkad, Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi etc.).

You are so right about this: “Once those viewers were set free, once they were given a choice, they shifted loyalties to channels that showed programmes that they wanted to see, not the ones they had to see. That doesn’t sound like a bad thing, at all – except when you consider that when we are given a choice, we usually choose pizza over spinach. When I had only Doordarshan, I watched whatever was shown – including programmes like Expedition to the Animal Kingdom and Carl Sagan’s Cosmos”.

It’s like a kid who is given whatever he asks and then end up feeling totally empty and unhappy… That’s what happened now. Waiting for that Friday evening (OLiyum Oliyum, The World This Week) was so ecstatic and fulfilling… (now it’s just another evening!). And the surprise at what song you might get to see, Oh, such a bliss!

I know we sound like old farts (Remember: I am always only 27 🙂 )… But DD is carrying on the same tradition – Like Vivek says in a movie: “ஆளே இல்லாத கடையில யாருக்குடா டீ ஆத்தர?!” What to do… Life sucks. Reality bites.